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I have been trying to keep up with list messages about embryonic stem cell research (I am 1000 messages behind on everything else). This is such an important topic because the forthcoming election will give us a choice as to whether or not federal funding of this promising line of research, which George W. Bush opposes, will be forbidden by executive order. Without NIH funding, embryonic stem cell research will continue, but on a much reduced scale, without the participation of many expert university researchers, and without the controls and oversight which the recent NIH guidelines provide. Fortunately, this is not an issue for Parkinson's disease alone. According to an article posted by the Foundation for Biomedical Research at http://www.fbresearch.org/factsstem.htm, there is an alliance of several disease organizations, called the Coalition for Urgent Research, that supports the NIH position and includes as members the Parkinson's Action Network, the American Cancer Society, and the Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation. Other diseases which will benefit from embryonic stem cell research, according to the NIH (see http://www.nih.gov/news/stemcell/achieve.htm) include diabetes, heart disease, kidney disease, stroke, autoimmune diseases, retinal degeneration, Alzheimer's disease, and osteoarthritis -- just to name a few! It would be good for the other Parkinson's organizations to unite in such an alliance in support of the NIH position on embryonic stem cell research, and perhaps we can facilitate this if we as members urge our organizations to do so. Some people have questioned the necessity of using embryonic stem cells, hoping that adult stem cells will do the job. The researchers themselves, however, who are the ones who are most aware of the capabilities of stem cells, do not say this. See, for example, Parkinson's Institute head Dr. Langston's comments on a study reported on August 8 in which marrow cells were converted to nerve cells. He indicated that it is unknown whether it is possible to make not just nerve cells that way, but brain cells that make dopamine, that make it in the right amount, and that do not revert back to marrow cells. Regarding the underlying ethical issues, it seems always to come back to the question of the personhood of the early stage embryo. Some list members have suggested avoiding controversial research or have said that discussing such ethical questions is useless because everyone's mind is already made up. I believe that there is value in critically understanding the implicit ideas behind our own deeply held beliefs, as well as identifying and understanding the sources of these beliefs. Study and discussion can bring these out, and growth can result. Unexamined beliefs, on the other hand, are not worth holding. My own thoughts on the matter, and I would appeciate critical and thoughtful responses, are as follows: there can't be a person or human being without the biological equipment to support it. A group of a few dozen unspecialized embryonic cells which have division into more cells as their only current function and capability, constitutes an organism, but it is not at all what we mean by the term "person" or even "child" in the ordinary sense. Early embryonic cells contain a "potential" person by virtue of the DNA, but this potential is a program for the development of a person, and is not the actual resulting unique and valuable person. At what point in the development of an embryo or fetus there emerges a human being or person is impossible to say, but it seems to me that it happens gradually, in parallel with the development of increasing fetal complexity and function, and not all at once at any particular point in time. This point has not been reached or even closely approached by the embryo when stem cells are extracted for research. There is life then, yes, but certainly not a human being, not even a tiny one. This is not inconsistent with religious belief. (And religion is an especially good thing for politicians to profess in public these days, say the newspapers.) It is similar to but not identical with, what I understand to be the view of Saint Augustine, who held that the fetus had to reach a certain level of of development before it could be animated with a human soul. Phil Tompkins Amherst, Massachusetts age 62/dx 1990